Join AgX on a cinematic field trip as we explore the stations, landscapes and people of "America's First Subway." Depending on how many of us sign up, we will break into 4 or 5 groups and shoot on 16mm or Super 8 film. Participants are encouraged to film at one station or explore multiple stations from north to south along the same line.
Some ideas include:
Blue Line – Revere Beach/Suffolk Downs/Maverick Square/Government Center
Red Line/Mattapan Trolley – Alewife/Park Street/Andrew Square/Ashmont/Fields Corner/Quincy Center//Wollaston/Braintree/Mattapan Trolley
Orange Line – Oak Grove/Malden Center/Wellington Station/Assembly/Chinatown/Ruggles/Jackson/Forest Hills
Green Line – Lechmere/Cleveland Circle/Boston College/Reservoir/ Green Line Extension Brigham Circle/Heath Street (E branch)
WHAT YOU'LL BRING:
- Charlie Card
- 16mm or Super 8 film and cameras
- Monopods (no tripods, please)
- Sound gear
- Light meter (or notes, hiking shoes... whatever you need).
- Sunscreen, bugspray, a hat and sunglasses especially if you are looking to film around Revere Beach, Suffolk Downs and Belle Isle Marsh (a short walk from Suffolk Downs station)
- FOOD, and an empty bag or container for refuse
- COOLER or lunchpack
- Hiking, sitting affordances ( a blanket or small camping chair)
- WATER container
Please RSVP by June 2 to get an idea of who is attending
OPTIONAL: Reconvene with your group near Park Street to grab an early dinner and talk about the experience. Please let your organizers know if you have an interest in doing this.
The MBTA in Literature / Film
- There is a short science fiction story published in 1950 (before the colors were initiated) set on the T, called "A Subway Called Mobius" - about a lost train with 350 passengers on it (#86, it so happens) which gets stuck in the 4th dimension due to some new construction connecting all of the lines together. At the end of the story, the train reappears between Central and Harvard Stations, with all passengers present and unharmed - but then another one disappears near Egleston.
- In 1996, an Argentine filmmaker adapted the short story into a feature film called "Mobius", and changed the location to be about the Buenos Aires subway system. He was also apparently using the film as a metaphor for the political disappearances happening at the time. In the end of that film, the train does reappear, but none of the passengers are found.
- In 2017, an anthology of poems about Boston was released, edited by Boston’s Poet Laureate Danielle Legros Georges, and including a poem called “The Day Dreamers”, in part about the T, by local poet Robert Pinsky:
The Day Dreamers
All day all over the city every person
Wanders a different city, sealed intact
And haunted as the abandoned subway stations
Under the city. Where is my alley doorway?
Stone gable, brick escarpment, cliffs of crystal.
Where is my terraced street above the harbor,
Café and hidden workshop, house of love?
Webbed vault, tiled blackness. Where is my park, the path
Through conifers, my iron bench, a shiver
Of ivy and margin birch above the traffic?
A voice. There is a mountain and a wood
Between us—one wrote, lovesick—Where the late
Hunter and the bird have seen us. Aimless at dusk,
Heart muttering like any derelict,
Or working all morning, violent with will,
Where is my garland of lights? My silver rail?